The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (TCM) has been widely recognized as a groundbreaking and politicized contribution to the horror canon and to the slasher subgenre in particular. This month, on its…
Contemporaries Essays
// Texas / Chain Saw / Atmospheres //
In the paragraphs that follow, preferably in John Larroquette’s voice, please read / pronounce / hear the word “slash” whenever you see / read the punctuation that follows this colon:…
Chainsaw Meridian
The familiar sound of a spade slicing through terrain. A series of off-centre, inconsistently focused holiday snapshots; glimpses of the night before. Shadows stretch westward, the sky glows amber, its…
The Grim Meat-Hook Realities of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
“We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that Sixties. Uppers are going out of style. This was the fatal flaw in…
“I Will Survive”: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) and the Emergence of the Postmodern Final Girl
The slasher is a horror subgenre whose formulaic narrative revolves around a group of young people chased by a monstrous (disfigured or masked) psychopath. In the end, the so-called final…
My Apron is a Chainsaw: Leatherface and His Family Beyond the Masculine Proletariat
October 2024 marks fifty years since audiences were first terrorized by one of the inaugural slasher monsters, Leatherface. According to the critics’ consensus, Leatherface and his family of unemployed slaughterhouse…
“Becoming Philosophical” in the Slaughterhouse: Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s Industrial Cosmic Horror
“One could not stand and watch very long without becoming philosophical, without beginning to deal in symbols and similes, and to hear the hog-squeal of the universe.” – Upton Sinclair,…
Autonomy
When Yogita Goyal first encouraged me to participate in a roundtable on keywords in postcolonial studies, I struggled to think of a particular concept or term that would be suitable…
Reparation
Durban and the “Southern Rebellion” In 2001, reparation did not seem poised to be a keyword for postcolonial thought in the 21st century. The United Nations World Conference Against Racism…
Latin-Africa
The term “Latin-Africa” originates from twentieth-century Latin American Cold War rhetoric. Cuban leader Fidel Castro coined it in 1976, at Havana’s First Congress, to celebrate Cuban military support of Angola’s…